


you who never arrived in my arms

by dilkirani



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Post-Framework, happyish I mean, literally just talking about framework trauma, tw: mentions of assault/non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 16:59:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11741313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilkirani/pseuds/dilkirani
Summary: "All she can focus on is Fitz and whether he’s okay and whether he will ever meet her eyes again. She sits with him when he cries. She holds his hand on good days and holds his whole body together on bad days."





	you who never arrived in my arms

**Author's Note:**

> title from "You Who Never Arrived" by Rainer Maria Rilke

All she can focus on is Fitz and whether he’s okay and whether he will ever meet her eyes again. She sits with him when he cries. She holds his hand on good days and holds his whole body together on bad days. Sometimes he opens up to her, spilling his secrets into her lap. She confesses to stabbing him; they forgive each other for what they cannot yet forgive themselves.

But this is the extent of their physical intimacy, because he never takes initiative and she is afraid to push him. She misses when all parts of him were wholly hers, when they could lose themselves in each other and nothing else in the world mattered.

Today is a good day. They sit hip-to-hip on the edge of the bed, and she tells a joke and he laughs unexpectedly. She glances up at him and sees an ache behind his eyes to match her own, so she presses her lips to his, softly and hesitantly.

That’s all it is for a moment, a gentle question and answer, a faint _okay?_ and _yes_ and _please_ , until suddenly he pulls her closer and deepens the kiss, sucking at her tongue and biting her lip. Her whole body is consumed with an intense desire that tips over into actual need. His hands skim underneath her shirt, burning a trail along her chilled skin, and she whimpers against his mouth. She reaches up, palming his cheeks to force him harder against her.

It takes her brain a second to process what she’s feeling, to understand why her hands are wet, why his ragged breathing sounds less like arousal and more like panic.

“Fi-Fitz?” she asks, tremulously, self-conscious of the way her body is still begging for his touch. She takes a gulp of air and presses a hand to her forehead. He leans over, hides his face in his hands, and chokes on a sob.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, heartbroken and furious at herself.

“No,” he says, “no, it’s me.” He inhales a shuddering breath but she doesn’t put a comforting hand on his shoulder. She’s too afraid to touch him.

She blinks back her own tears and hesitates, unsure what he needs from her, or even what changed so suddenly. “Fitz,” she tries, “are you...what happened?”

He shakes his head. He’s practically folded in on himself. “I can see her,” he says. Her stomach clenches painfully and she tightens her hand into a fist unconsciously before forcing herself to relax, hoping he hasn’t noticed.

“I don’t know how to say it,” he mumbles, and they sit for a moment, breathing through matching tears. She stands then and turns out the bedroom light, surrounding them in a heavy darkness barely penetrated by fluorescent lighting from the hallway.

“Here,” she says softly, guiding him down onto the bed and pulling a blanket up to his chin. “Just say what you can.”

She sits on the floor next to the nightstand, close enough if he needs her, but still slightly removed. She hears him lick his lips and can almost feel the way his body trembles.

“I don’t want to remember her,” he finally says, “but I do. I keep seeing her and the...the things we did. And I know I, I _wanted_ it, but now I just feel sick about it all the time.”

Jemma swallows thickly, overcome with a need to protect him. She would do anything, she realizes, to take this away from him.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs brokenly, turning onto his back and covering his face with his hands again. “I’m so sorry.”

“Fitz, please don’t. You don’t owe me an apology.”

“But it’s...you don’t want to hear about...we, it’s, it’s practically _cheating_.”

She reaches for his hand and hesitates. “Can I?” she asks, and when he finally turns to her and nods, she takes his hand and presses it to her face, closing her eyes and remembering that she is loved by him in every way he knows how.

“You feel sick about it because it was assault, Fitz.” He stills, except for his hand against her face. The slightest of tremors runs from his fingers and down into her spine.

He shakes his head. “But in the Framework, I chose to—I wanted that. So it wasn’t, it was just me making a choice. And I can’t live with it now.”

She wants to cry. She wants to scream. She wants to bring AIDA back from the dead and rage at her for days. Death is too easy. AIDA deserved to live with the pain she’d caused.

Instead, she takes a breath and runs a hand through his hair. “She kidnapped you and plugged you into the Framework without your consent. She didn’t just change one regret, she manipulated your whole life. I know what she told you, but she had more control over everything that happened than she wanted us to believe. None of that was your choice. And now you’re being forced to live with memories you didn’t have a choice in making.”

His face crumples. “I just want it to go away,” he cries.

“I know you do,” she whispers. But she doesn’t know if it will and she can’t promise him anything she doesn’t know for sure, not now after everything. “I believe it will get better with time,” she offers. This is her standing on a shaky branch of faith, but time has softened all of her traumas and she can only hope it will for him.

Fitz doesn’t say anything, just draws in weak breaths, and she worries, irrationally, that he’s not getting enough oxygen. She places a kiss to his knuckles. He’s afraid of his hands now, looks at them and sees blood and gunpowder, weapons and sin. He’s afraid she sees him standing over her with a gun to her head, but instead she remembers the way his fingers constructed the dwarfs, repaired her jewelry, itched to build things, to understand through touch. She remembers his hands pressed firmly into her flesh, the way he made coming apart into something so beautiful. She’s always loved watching him work.

She is safe in his hands. Despite everything, this is still a truth she knows. She kisses him again and speaks her words into his palm. “I love you,” she says. “I need you to know that I’ve always loved you and I always will, and nothing that’s happened will change that. I need you to know that even if you...even if you can never be with me like that again, it doesn’t matter to me.”

“Jemma,” he sighs, not meeting her eyes. “Of course it matters.”

“It doesn’t matter to me as much as your health and safety and happiness. I’m never going to leave you, Fitz. Not ever, and especially not over this. I really need you to believe me.”

He laughs, softly, without mirth. “I believe you. But I don’t deserve you.”

She can’t help rolling her eyes fondly. “Well, I’ve felt like that for years. So now we’re even.” She shifts a bit, sore from sitting on the floor this whole time, and looks up at him. He’s staring at the ceiling, tears sliding down his face and pooling onto the pillow.

“What we deserve has never mattered,” she says. “Which is unfortunate, because if it mattered we never would have experienced all these betrayals and...and involuntary space work assignments and portals to other planets and the Framework. If we got what we deserved, we’d be in Perthshire right now eating a fancy dinner after a productive, satisfying day of work. Work that we enjoy but needn’t die for.”

She feels a tightness in her chest as she talks, overcome with how unfair it all really is. She can almost feel the blistering Scottish wind against her skin, what it would be like to nestle into Fitz for warmth. What it would feel like to hold a chubby, squirming child with Fitz’s blond curls and blue eyes and sweet shyness. The emptiness of her arms weighs her down.

Fitz turns to her and in his heartbroken expression she remembers him as a teenager, as someone she loved but didn’t truly know. Now, she knows his soul and it’s more beautiful than she could ever have imagined. She wishes she could show him.

He blinks, once, twice, then clears his throat. “Could you…?” He can’t finish, but she understands. She stands slowly, her barely-healed leg protesting. In this moment, she is so much older than thirty.

Fitz lifts the blanket and she slides in next to him. She holds herself stiffly until he shifts carefully towards her, wrapping around her limbs like an invocation. Her whole body melts. She imagines submerging herself into him completely, imagines her own heart pumping blood through his veins. Something tight inside her starts to loosen. It’s only in the absence of this pain that she realizes how much she’s been hurting, like a bruise that someone has been squeezing for months and suddenly released.

“I miss you,” he whispers, and he places a hand to her heart so gently she’s not sure which of them he’s afraid will break. His hand is warm and heats her skin pleasantly. “I miss being with you.”

“I’ll always be here,” she says. “We can go slow. Whatever you need.”

“I don’t know what I need,” he confesses. She brings her hand up to cover his and she presses down harder. She will show him that he can’t hurt her.

“But someday you will. We’ll figure it out together, okay?” He stares at her for a long time before nodding. And then he leans closer and slots his mouth against hers.

Their first kiss had been all desperation and lost chances and trying to take back what the universe had stolen. Their second had been an attempt at speaking truths without words because she had not been as courageous then as she would become. Their third was how they were always meant to be: falling into each other like magnets, laughing and easy and inevitable, finally believing that loving someone so much could be wonderful and not terrifying.

This kiss is unlike all the thousands that have preceded it. Jemma maps his face with her lips. She already knows every inch, every freckle and line by heart, but she teaches Fitz again, slowly. It is soft and tentative, and it is only, only the beginning.


End file.
